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Iran battles US, Israel… in computer game

(AFP) Iran on Monday launched a computer game with a strong political message that mixes the standoff over its nuclear programme, the mystery of missing diplomats in Lebanon and its hatred of Israel. Players of the game “Special Operation 85: Hostage Rescue” play the part of a special agent battling to release captured Iranian diplomats and nuclear scientists from the clutches of his US and Israeli foes. The game has been produced by the Union of the Islamic Students, which was behind the infamous “World Without Zionism” conference in 2005 where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be “wiped from the map”. “In this game we are not promoting terrorism and violence. By freeing Iranian hostages we are promoting selflessness, devotion and defence of our country,” said the group’s secretary general Mohammad Taghi Fakhrian. The eight-level game starts in Iraq, where a young married couple who are Iranian nuclear scientists have been captured by US forces while making a pilgrimage to the Shiite holy shrine in Karbala. Enter Iranian special operations officer Bahman Nasseri, whose mission it is to save the couple, named Saeed and Maryam, who have now been spirited away to a prison in Iran’s arch-foe Israel. He slips into Israel and locates their prison. In a twist, here he finds locked away not only the young scientists but also four other Iranians who in real life have been missing since disappearing in northern Lebanon at the height of the civil war in 1982. There has never been any official confirmation over the fate of three Iranian diplomats and one photographer. But Tehran believes they were handed over to Israel by Lebanese Christian forces and are still alive. A successful player completes the eight levels by killing US and Israeli soldiers, stealing their laptops which hold secret information and finally liberating the scientists and the diplomats. A player operates the Iranian-made AK-47 machine gun of special agent Nasseri, making sure it has enough ammunition and then shooting down enemy soldiers who suddenly pop up in the three-dimensional graphics. The enemy then falls to the ground and Fakhrian then continues his relentless pursuit of his quarry to the sound of pounding electronic music. Anyone who loses their “life” in the game is spurred on to try again with the words: “With resistance and help you can battle the enemy.” An Iranian flag flutters in the top right hand corner throughout. Fakhrian said that the computer game had been inspired by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “The computer games are cultural mediums that have their own positive and negative effects on young people. In our last meeting with the leader he told us to come up with ways to guide our children and students. “So we went and thought about it and found out that it is computer games which have the most influence on the young people.”